Iran shut the Strait of Hormuz without a navy. A handful of missile and drone strikes convinced the insurance markets that transit came with too steep a risk, and commercial shipping immediately shut down. The chokepoint closed on its own, without Iran ever having to declare a formal blockade. The lesson for Beijing is obvious. Chinese military planners, who have long studied how to use economic pressure against Taiwan, have a proof of concept.

You don’t need to sink ships to shut down a global trade route and force the United States to the negotiating table. You just need to create enough uncertainty that the private sector falls in line. The Trump Administration does not have the stomach for prolonged economic pain, and it has no plan to make that pain tolerable. America’s adversaries have us over a barrel. Washington needs to deal with this problem, or we are setting ourselves up to be blackmailed and extorted in every region of the world. 

For years, the debate over Taiwan in Washington has revolved around a single question: Could Beijing successfully invade the island? When the U.S. intelligence community recently concluded that China has no fixed timeline for doing so, many found the assessment reassuring. They were wrong to. The more accurate interpretation is that Beijing no longer believes invasion is necessary.

China has a better option—one that Iran, in a cruder form—is demonstrating before our eyes now. Consider the following scenario. Beijing declares legal jurisdiction over the waters surrounding Taiwan. It fires missiles into designated exclusion........

© Time